Snare buzz from Toms

Since the snare is the main voice of the kit, and the drum you play most, I tend to get it where I like it and adjust toms around it. Usually tuning your smallest tom up or down just a touch will work.

One trick you can try on your snare is to loosen (or alternately, tighten) the four lugs closest to the snares on the snare side of the drum. It doesn't take much - 1/8 to 1/4 turn. That can help, too, and won't change the overall tuning of the snare too much.

Try a few things and report back. 😊

Oh, and btw, some buzz is perfectly normal! You just don't want it to be crazy loud.
 
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Right…some buzz is normal and can’t be dialed out. And frankly, toms sound odd to me if I don’t hear buzz.

Bottom line, Hannah, drums are weird ;). They do things that make no sense, and one tiny little tweak to their tuning can make them sound amazing or send you off on a 20 minute chase to fix it. It gets easier with experience but there’s no shortcuts around the experience.
 
Hi!

So I’m learning to tune my drums and when I hit the Tom my snare buzzes now. Is it the tom I need to adjust or snare or both usually?

Thanks!!
I’m probably the last guy to ask but I’d say maybe your springs I forgetthename under the snare? Are the drums touching? Is it a cheap set?
 
Is the sustain on the tom pretty long? Shortening it by widening the interval between the top and bottom heads could lessen snare buzz and keep the same tom pitch if you want to keep that pitch.

Edit: (in English) if you want to lessen snare buzz but want to keep your tom's pitch, increasing the interval between the tom's batter and resonant heads will shorten the sustain on the tom (shortening the snare buzz from bzzzzzzzzz to bzzzz).

It may take a bit of trial and error to get the fundamental pitch you want but we're only talking about a fraction of a turn on the lugs.
 
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Note to self…Please simplify that plz?
Tune the top head a bit lower and the bottom head a bit higher to shorten sustain of the tom, while keeping the overall pitch similar. (Also works the other way - tighten the top, loosen the bottom)

The main idea is, the more difference in pitch between top and bottom heads, the shorter the sustain.
 
So I’m learning to tune my drums and when I hit the Tom my snare buzzes now.
You've already gotten a whole bunch of how's, so I'll give you the why.

There are a few reasons:

1. The head is a floating membrane. It reacts to everything. Any vibrations effect its surface as they pass through. This is a good thing.

2. Frequencies. Heads tend to like particular frequencies more than others when tuned. Certain ones activate heads under tension more than others. You can tune around this, right into another frequency range lol.

3. Concussion. Some sounds emit a pressure wave. Hit a big drum hard enough and you can feel it in your torso. So does the drumhead.

I turn my snares off when I tune. I gave up trying to make the buzz go away without using stuff a long time ago.
 
I’m probably the last guy to ask but I’d say maybe your springs I forgetthename under the snare? Are the drums touching? Is it a cheap set?
They're called snare wires and this is the set Ms Hannah went with in the end (not dirt cheap but not too expensive either so I'd say intermediate).
 

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Right…some buzz is normal and can’t be dialed out. And frankly, toms sound odd to me if I don’t hear buzz.

Bottom line, Hannah, drums are weird ;). They do things that make no sense, and one tiny little tweak to their tuning can make them sound amazing or send you off on a 20 minute chase to fix it. It gets easier with experience but there’s no shortcuts around the experience.
Haha yeah. It’s a pretty big bzzzzzzz lol enough to be distracting. Am I tightening or loosening? Lol idk what I’m doing 😂

Thanks for all the tips and info guys!
 
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Haha yeah. It’s a pretty big bzzzzzzz lol enough to en distracting. Am I tightening or loosening? Lol idk what I’m doing 😂
Tighter. In relation to the way that we tune toms, the snare heads are tighter. Unless you want splat, which it where it sounds like you are at already.

If you hear a cracking sound, that's just glue. Its normal.

EDIT: This includes the reso. Tune it up as well. Some like to go as far as table top (super tight).
 
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It happens to me even with a low volume kit (L80s+mesh heads), so I guess it's normal. It bothered me for a while, until I completely forgot about it.
 
You can tune to minimise it and some people really hate it but most people just learn to live with it as long as it's not too extreme. It's a quirk of the instrument.

The classic issue is when you're playing with an acoustic band and you turn the strainer off so that there is no buzz (as the instruments also set it off) and then forget to put them back on just before you start playing. I've done that countless times and it's always followed by a bit of a startled fluster and a lot of swearing.
 
EDrum modules even have a snare buzz value you can increase or decrease, because without some snare buzz it doesn't sound realistic. It's a natural part of the kit's ambiance, you just don't want it to be excessive. And as Dave Weckl demonstrates in the video above, it is normally inaudible when you're actually playing instead of just hitting the tom.
 
My snare drum buzzed when there was any noise at all, so retuning the toms wasn't going to help. If I spoke too close to the drum it buzzed. If a guitarist or bassist played a note it buzzed. It was just constantly buzzing during band practice, like a non-stop buzz roll through every song.

I reduced the number of strands on my snare wires by cutting wires out of the centre, sort of like Puresound Equalizer snare wires. I just used a cheapo set of snares, and I left fewer wires in place than the Equalizer. That greatly reduced the buzz, and it also let me hear more of the drum instead of just snare chatter.

snares.JPG
 
My snare drum buzzed when there was any noise at all, so retuning the toms wasn't going to help. If I spoke too close to the drum it buzzed. If a guitarist or bassist played a note it buzzed. It was just constantly buzzing during band practice, like a non-stop buzz roll through every song.

I reduced the number of strands on my snare wires by cutting wires out of the centre, sort of like Puresound Equalizer snare wires. I just used a cheapo set of snares, and I left fewer wires in place than the Equalizer. That greatly reduced the buzz, and it also let me hear more of the drum instead of just snare chatter.
Oh interesting! Thanks for the tip! I don’t think it’s buzzing as much anymore now I’ve fiddled with it a bit but I’m still learning. but dang if you talked it buzzed? Yeah that had to be frustrating!
 
Sympathetic vibration.

Usually there's a note or two from other instruments that can have that effect to a much higher degree than your toms which is why we turn the snares off during certain situations when we're not playing.

In context it's not always a problem. It may actually help tie the sound of your kit together, but you just do what you can to control it to your liking.

As long as the drums sound good it would have to be pretty bad for me to care.
 
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